People Rise Up Radio presents some information for activists on how to spot infiltrators and keep yourself safe. Go to this page for the link to the original audio version.
Especially if you’re an activist in Occupy, 99 Rise, or whatever may come next — you have got to read this. Informeation not intended to be used to facilitate actual violent or otherwise nasty criminal activity. — G.A.D.
Orange Juice Blog — with Benedict Cumberbatch! (Note: one lesson OJB has learned today is that even if you are publishing a story on Agents Provocateurs, you will find nothing useful for that purpose by doing an image search on “agents provocateurs.” And afterwards, you may have to burn your hard disk.
How To Spot a Spy
One way to neutralize potential activists is to get them into a group that does all the wrong things. Why?
1) So the message doesn’t get out
2) Time is wasted
3) to frustrate and discourage activists
4) And simply Nothing good or effective is accomplished
FBI and Police Informers and Infiltrators will infest any group, but they have also been known to establish phony activist organizations themselves.
Their primary purpose is to prevent an effective movement for social, environmental or economic justice from developing.
Agents come in small, medium or large and be of any ethnic background. They can be male or female.
The actual size of the group or movement being infiltrated is irrelevant. It’s the idea behind a movement and its potential for increasing in size and impact which attracts spies and saboteurs.
These are some tactics agents use to slow things down, foul things up, destroy a movement and keep tabs on activists.
One tactic is to destroy a group outright. Another tactic is to manipulate from within.
For example, an agent may tell an activist,
“You’re dividing the movement.”
Because, this invites guilty feelings. Guilt is an especially potent control mechanism when relations have been established through dedication to a cause.
When an agent criticizes an activist in such a manner, they are not only questioning their dedication to the cause, but making the activist feel responsible for any issues that threaten the cause.
An agent might tell an activist: “You’re a leader!”
This is designed to enhance the activist’s self-esteem and creates a sense of shared perspective. Agents often benefit from empowering any feelings of righteousness an activist may develop from making altruistic contributions.
“Malignant pseudo-identification” is the process where an agent consciously imitates certain behaviors or mannerisms to nurture the activist’s identification with the agent, thus increasing the activist’s vulnerability to exploitation.
If an agent successfully creates this sense of kinship with an activist, the activist may be more likely to commit an illegal act in service to their new found “friend”.
Agents may also employ tearfulness, sadness, longing, fear, remorse, and guilt, to induce empathy, with the aim of manipulating the good natured activist.
It may be difficult to differentiate such constructed dramas from the real thing; however, it’s possible for activists to identify a fraud by employing two simple tactics.
First, remain cool and detached. Second observe. In the face of such a cool response, an agent will often quickly readjust. This will appear to be an abrupt about-face in context to the emotional drama the agent had just played out. Knowing the activists cannot be “emotionally hooked”, the agent will usually move on to other activists in short order.
“Follow the leader” is another tactic an agent may employ.
A good agent will want to meet as often as possible. He or she will talk a lot and say little. One can expect an onslaught of long, unresolved discussions.
Some agents take on a pushy, arrogant, or defensive manner in discussions, both online and in person. An agent employs these techniques in order to disrupt the agenda, or side-track the discussion. And agent will often interrupt a discussion repeatedly or feign ignorance – causing others to constantly repeat themselves or waste time explaining a very simple point others quickly understand. An agent may also make an unfounded accusation against a person.
Calling someone a racist, for example. This tactic is used to discredit a person in the eyes of other group members and in turn, derails the discussion, while invalidating whatever point was being made.
Saboteurs
Some saboteurs pretend to be activists. She or he will ….
1) Write encyclopedic flyers or website pages, to deter potential activists from participating by making the issue too complex and boring to ignite taking action.
2) Print flyers in English only, disenfranchising communities whose first language is not English.
3) suggest demonstrations be held in places where no one cares about the issue or where it will not be seen by many people.
4) Confuse issues. Blurring the lines between issues and broadening the scope beyond reason.
5) Make the wrong demands. As in, making demands that are unrelated or far reaching, unprincipled according to group, demands ineffectual or serving no strategic purpose, making too many demands in order to obscure the focus on the issue and suggesting impossible or improbable demands which may make the effort appear unreasonable.
6) Compromise the goal. Derail a vital tactic, discredit movement, marginalize a goal by asserting it is hypocritical within context of the group’s broader efforts, break with the movement’s stated principles, or broker a compromise on behalf of the movement which falls well short of the groups stated goal and may limit the group’s ability to take further action.
7) Have endless discussions that waste everyone’s time, by turning the topic at hand into philosophical diatribes or adding lengthy personal stories.
The agent may engage in endless discussions and accompany them with drinking, pot smoking or make amusement to slow down the group’s work. Complaints of needing social time together and taking things too seriously, while complex issues or plans are being discussed.
Provocateurs
1) Try to establish “leaders” to set them up for a fall in order to stop the movement.
2) Suggest doing foolish, illegal things that will get the activists in trouble and make the movement look bad in the eyes of the public.
3) Will taunt the authorities above and beyond the context of the scene on the ground and encouraging others to follow suit.
4) Attempt to make the activists compromise their values, which they may use against an activist at a later date, to discredit or invalidate anything of value they contribute.
5) Instigate violence.
Provocateurs will attempt to escalate a situation by agitating to the point of physical confrontation with other activists or bystanders. Some will stage an act of vandalism from within a crowd as a means to trigger violent responses from others or the police; which is particularly effective when among people who are ill-prepared to deal with such violence.
Causing violence to occur not only serves to smear the movement in the press, but can also deter future participation by current members and the public at large. Causing this type of chaos, fear and confusion can also aid agents in concealing their identity when fleeing the scene after their goal is accomplished.
Informants
1) Want everyone to sign up, sign in and sign everything. – record keeping, evidence and contact info for tracing/tracking?
2) Ask a lot of questions for data gathering on individuals. Police compile this information and keep it on hand at protests to identify activists and make targeted arrests.
3) Want to know which events activists are planning to attend, to further the shared perspective facade, continue surveillance efforts and expand databases.
4) Attempt to make the activist defensive in order to identify beliefs, goals and level of commitment. Playing the “contrarian” or questioning as if they don’t understand or playing stupid, but arguing nonetheless.m
Recruiting
Legitimate activists do not subject people to hours of persuasive dialog. Their actions, beliefs and goals speak for themselves.
Groups that DO recruit are missionaries, military, and fake political parties or movements set up by agents.
Surveillance
ALWAYS assume that you are under surveillance (on the ground and online) -and that there are infiltrators/agents amongst/within your group.
At this point, if you are NOT under surveillance and being infiltrated, then agents are not doing their job and you are not a very effective activist or group!
Scare Tactics
They use them.
Such tactics include slander, defamation, threats, getting close to disaffected or minimally committed fellow activists to persuade them to turn against the movement and give false testimony against their former comrades.
They will plant illegal substances on the activist and set up an arrest; they will plant false information and set up “exposure,” they will send incriminating communications in the name of an activist; and more; they will do whatever society will allow. – And NOT allow!
Putting activists in a sticky legal situation, can lead to cooperation with the police state and this tactic is especially effective when an activists has developed a sense of disconnection, typically heightened by a bond with an agent.
If an agent is “exposed,” he or she will be transferred or replaced. Communications between trusted activist groups across the country can be very useful for this reason.
COINTELPRO is still in operation today under a different code name; although, it’s no longer placed on paper where it can be discovered through the freedom of information act.
The FBI counterintelligence program’s stated purpose is to expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, and otherwise neutralize individuals who the FBI categorizes as being opposed to “National Interests”.
As Noam Chomsky has correctly pointed out, “A slight breach in orthodoxy is sufficient to terrify authoritarian ideologues, who see in it the collapse of the system of thought control, that has been so effective in depoliticizing American Society.”
This in no way covers all the means agents use to sabotage the lives of sincere and dedicated activists or movements.
Many of these activities may appear innocuous enough and that is true, as networking is a vital part of activism. This isn’t a blueprint for paranoia, but rather tools vigilance.
train your brain, create a habit, make mental notes, remain vigilant, small incidents may add up to patterns of behavior over time.
Speak with trusted comrades to see if they have also noticed these types of behaviors.
Trust your gut, never do anything you’re not completely comfortable with. The best way to create security is to build community!
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Is this the weekend open thread?
No, Vern’s coming out with that one with week. It’ll be good.
Skally…you always crack me up with your comments. You should audition for any ‘walk-in’ parts on the show Workaholics.
Good points but there are some activists who are simply drama queens, stubborn, have their own biases (I won’t work with that group because they will take over), ego issues, and no empathy for other people in the group…these people are not infiltrated spies…they are pains-in-the-ass. But still a good read.
Inge is referring to Occupy Irvine- “O.C.”
HHHAAAAAA HAAAAAAAA.
Not just Irvine…there are plenty of others who had the same problems..it seemed universal
In summary Vern, Don’t sign up for shit. Don’t be somebody else’s martyr. Don’t donate money. Don’t go on scavenger hunts. Don’t be a lemming for the egotists. Don’t spend all day trying to translate other people’s overly complicated b.s. Just stay committed to your own intuition and ideals. Don’t sell out.
Some food for thought here, but only that. The behaviors described can also be done by not-so-smart, but genuine, activists. That’s the nature of the game.
I wrote a bit on this subject, with links to relevant articles, some years ago:
http://kitchenmudge.wordpress.com/2008/09/19/whom-i-dont-know/
Dear Greg,
Apologies, only just now saw you posted our piece. We are honored you felt it worth repeating.
I can say I wish I knew this when I went in to Occupy. The sad fact that such information was not more widely known and shared allowed a lot of valuable information and warning signs to be missed and unfortunately – many to be arrested and jailed.
While we agree that some of the attributes described can cast a wide net if not properly utilized and measured against a carefully selected grain of salt – we still felt the material had merit. We actually revised much of the original text to match recent and documented experiences as well as our own.
Thank you for the link Mudge – we are always interested in expanding our knowledge base so we may better inform our audience.
The 1% and their minions in high places – locally and nationally – are playing a dirty game and they are playing for keeps. We must always remember this. Personal accountability and responsibility should always be at the forefront of the activists mind when occupying public spaces. NEVER DO ANYTHING YOU ARE UNCOMFORTABLE WITH. Don’t be afraid to point out behaviors you think may put you and/or your group or network at risks. It is our hope that our series on COINTELPRO and law enforcement tactics ( soundcloud.com/pruradio) gives everyone at least a basic understanding of the types and signs and behaviors that may indicate someone is not who they claim to be and may be detrimental to your cause.
Note: Calling someone a spy or snitch is a serious charge and should never be made lightly or as a tactic to gain power, prestige, or praise within a group (off and on line). Many of these behaviors need to be observed and noted over a period of time. DBA Press.com has released a series of How To’s to help activists empower themselves with knowledge by filing various requests for information. dbapress.com/quick-and-dirty
It can be especially hard to separate simply bad behavior and potentially sinister behavior, especially when one considers just how maladjusted our current culture and society is at present. Often we find people unwilling or unable to acknowledge their own shortcomings let alone do anything to correct them. In these cases, the activists best path forward is clear – don’t associate and organize with those who repeatedly act badly – especially those who have been duly and properly informed how their behavior is effecting the group and its participants. Those people are more interested in their own interests than the movement or anyone involved. You’re time and sanity is precious – such people divert attention, energy, and resources from whatever your group defines as a goal. Why waste them? Besides, if they aren’t an informant now, they may well soon be. It only takes one arrest… One night in jail or the prospect of one night in jail for some people to turn on their colleagues.
Leaked documents show that persons with narcissistic and patriarchal tendencies like Brandon Darby make good informants in the eyes of law enforcement. In fact, the FBI uses the presence of some of these traits when selecting confidential informants.
Brandon Darby on This American Life:
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/381/turncoat
http://www.bestofneworleans.com/gambit/brandon-darby-fbi-informant-and-common-ground-co-founder/Content?oid=1255606
No matter if you turn to us or some other source – educate yourself the best you can. And remember – NEVER do or say or agree to ANYTHING you are not comfortable with.
Read: How FBI Entrapment Is Inventing ‘Terrorists’ – and Letting Bad Guys Off the Hook
rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/how-fbi-entrapment-is-inventing-terrorists-and-letting-bad-guys-off-the-hook-20120515
Stay safe! Your community needs you. The planet needs you. We need you.
Again thanks Greg – it is appreciated if late in notice.
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